i’ve been thinking a lot since my time at dane sander’s workshop this past monday and tuesday. some things that happened there made me wonder why i feel dissatisfied with where i am at. i have been feeling like i’ve lost my vision.
today, things started to come together. to understand why i have been feeling like i want MORE for my photography. today, i cried. i cried thinking that maybe i’ve gotten slightly off course, and i cried to think of the dreams i have that i cannot wait to realize.
this is my vision for the impact i want my business to have. enjoy.
Don Draper once said that viewing a photograph is like stepping into a time machine. It instantly brings you back to that place. The place where there is love. hope. happiness. joy. goodness.
I could write a novel on my favorite photographs, where they take me, and what i experience there…
I am on a ferris wheel in santa monica with a boy that seems too amazing to be real, and i don’t want to believe the look in his eyes that tells me with everything i believe that he loves me, because the intensity scares me. And I’m frightened that I could love him so much, with so much uncertainty ahead of us.
My dad is young and skinny, handsome with full and dark hair. He is looking into my brother’s eyes as a toddler and their faces are so close they are almost touching. I am aching with longing to be in that place, where we are all so close, where we are being taken care of and nurtured. Not a care in the world.
My high school best friend and I are in her green convertable volkswagen cabriolet. It’s the day after our senior prom and on the way to school we decided we wouldn’t go. We took our roller skates to the beach and our hair was still sticky from our hair sprayed up dos, and the salty beach air kissed our faces. We shared our dreams for the future. We shared everything.
We had stayed up all night packing. My bed littered with clothes, shoes, dvds, shampoo. Everything I would need for a year in Japan. Each item represented some part of me to bring, but in so many ways the biggest piece of me was staying home to finish his senior year. He is wearing his grey Santa Barbara tshirt. He made me steak and eggs the morning I got on the plane and said goodbye.
It’s Christmas morning in the smallest apartment Tokyo ever saw, and 9 Americans are crammed inside, and it feels like we are home. Tiny christmas decorations from the 100Yen store hang from every surface. We watched Seinfeld and missed our families but celebrated this new one we had found.
It’s raining lightly and he is standing in the middle of the bridge in a light blue collared shirt and khaki shorts and the tears are streaming down my face, stronger than the rain. He’s telling me things that I want to understand so badly but all I can do is cry and wonder how he could have made it here without me knowing, how he could have invented such an elaborate set of clues to lead me here, how he worked with my teammates to make sure I would find each of those clues. Japanese people stare curiously and wonder why I am such a mess and as he gets down on one knee they start to rejoice and I just cry even harder. and my heart is filled with more love than I thought it could contain.
She is in her button up blouse, her hair is done in loose curls, and her long veil is already clipped in place. As she applies her mascara she stops and turns to me and wants to know if it’s normal to feel nervous. And then she wants to pray together. As I’m setting down my camera and walking towards her I know that this is what I was meant to do with my life.
…
I am loud. I am spunky. Most of all, I am emotional. Songs will play at just the right time and I am in my car alone, crying; and while I know it is a gift to feel the weight of life so deeply at times- but sometimes it is just plain inconvenient.
I am drawn to colors, to patterns, to the way that light falls on your face. But most of all, I am drawn to laughter, to tears, to weighted embraces.
I tell people I am a photographer- but I know in my heart that I am a historian of moments to capture, share, re-live, and protect.
xoxo
Em
Holy moley, girl! This is an amazing post. You are a very special lady, and you definitely see the world through an artist’s lens. Thanks for sharing yourself with others! :)
You had me at Don Draper.
Incredible.
I’m thrilled for you. =)
Emily this post almost made ME cry! You’re a beautiful writer with an ever more beautiful heart (:
Love this post!
i got goosebumps. this is beautiful. love you friend.
I second the goosebumps. Even though you may hit some rocks along your path, you definitely are going in the right direction. You have an amazing energy and that shines through beautifully in your photographs. I love you.
p.s. every time I hear Teitur’s “One and Only” I start crying because it takes me back to watching a slow dance, and I feel so incredibly lucky to have been a witness to so much love.
Wow this is a great post!!! I love how you summed the stories behind each photo ;) I could of not said better. I love when God breaks us in order to bring us something new.
Oh Em. What beautiful words. It’s so incredibly evident that you’re doing what you were made to do. What an amazing gift. Helping people recall the most amazing times in their lives. How precious.
Oh Emily, I have tears streaming down my cheeks. What a beautiful post full of lovely memories.
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Em…the Gem…
that is exactly what you are. You sure dug deep and verbalized what’s inside that amazing heart of yours. Lovely transparence. It’s what I saw when we sat knee to knee, heart to heart. I’ll never forget that day when I got to memorize the color of your eyes. Thank you for this post. It inspires me and interrupts the crazy conversation I have in my head.
Crying happy tears, because we truly, truly have the best job in the world. I love your historian description, because it so perfectly describes how I feel.
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